1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to controlling a printer to print portions of E-mail messages in accordance with settings provided by a user through the header of an E-mail message sent to the printer, and further in accordance with settings provided by a printer administrator, and additionally in accordance with a file format of documents sent to the printer.
2. Summary of the Background Art
A number of E-mail printing systems in the background art use portions of non-printing headers, such as the MIME headers associated with documents to determine how E-mail documents will be printed. A disadvantage of such methods arises from the fact that a new process, unique to the type of printing system, is required for the generation of the E-mail message, in order to generate or modify a non-printing header.
U.S. Pat. Appl. Pub. No. 2002/0143924 describes a method for controlling a printer, with the method being applied to a mail server connected to the printer and a network. The mail server has an address inherent to the printer. In this method, the e-mail received by the mail server is decoded by a mail process unit. When an e-mail message includes a control instruction, a process is executed within the printer according to the control instruction. Such control instructions are executed to turn the power supply of the printer on or off, to provide a report on printer supplies management information, such as the volume of toner remaining in the printer, to provide a report of an operational state check of the printer, to update firmware of the printer with data in a file attached to the e-mail, to otherwise provide a maintenance operation, or to print an attached file. E-mail addressed to the printer includes a mail header and mail text. The printer mail address, a title, and the transmitter mail address are set in the mail header. The printer mail address is the destination address of the e-mail, and the transmitter mail address is the source address of the e-mail. A printer number, a command for performing a control instruction, and a password for security are set in the mail text. Within a printer control unit, a print process unit includes a number of emulators to support emulation processes, such as TIFF, Postscript, HPGL, and bit maps. The print process unit converts a file attached to the e-mail into a bitmap file, which is sent to the printer as a printer file. For example, the command “TIFF” means that the attached file is in the TIFF format.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,160,631 describes a print system capable of exchanging data in the form of electronic mail between computer systems in a plurality thereof using low-cost communication via the Internet. When the printer driver of a personal computer selects a personal computer on another computer system as the destination, the printer driver and the print mail transmission utility create print mail in which a mail header including print information is added to the print data for the contents of the mail, and the print mail is transmitted via the Internet addressed to the personal computer. The print mail reception utility of the personal computer receives the print mail and prints the print mail on a printer based on the print information included in the mail header.
Other examples of the patent literature describe printing systems that are similar to the system of U.S. Pat. No. 6,160,631, except that added features are activated through the use of data within the print header. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,268,926 uses an indication of the number of pages in the document to change the format of the documents printed so that the time and paper required to print a long document is reduced to one-fourth their normal values. U.S. Pat. No. 6,310,694 describes a print system of this type including a feature allowing a user transmitting a document for printing to specify parts of the document that are not printed. U.S. Pat. No. 6,333,791 describes such a print system in which the user is asked to specify whether a long document will be printed.
What is needed is an E-mail system in which a port monitor is used to generate E-mail to be printed on a system printer that prints E-mail messages from many systems, including systems sending E-mail messages in plain text, including command words determining conditions of printing, without the benefit of the specialized port monitor.
A process called net distribution has been used within a system having a plurality of terminals to distribute documents among users of the terminals through printers within the system. Usually, Net Distribution is adapted so that a printing job for printing out documents to be distributed is transmitted to the printers, while a distribution message is delivered to the terminal users requesting them to pick up documents at the printer outputs. Several printed patent applications describe methods for controlling the distribution of documents printed from E-mail messages by including information in the E-mail messages.
For example, U.S. Pat. App. Pub. No. 2001/0019425 describes a printing apparatus suitable for net distribution of secret documents, with the printing apparatus having a control section for transmitting a distribution message only to the receiving terminals specified for net distribution. The control section is further adapted to print documents only when the distribution information is included in the printing instructions.
U.S. Pat. App. Pub. No. 2001/0017712 describes E-mail printing apparatus for use by someone not having a printer, with the printing apparatus producing a print out only after the user enters an identifier based on information included in the E-mail.
U.S. Pat. App. Pub. No. 2002/0002590 describes a system and method for routing E-mails based on the recipient's physical address. The system includes an E-mail server that runs an authoritative process by which user login and password information is checked to maintain a secure system.
U.S. Pat. App. Pub. No. 2001/0040693 describes the use of an E-mail control section that transfers received E-mail that cannot be printed to another information terminal device. A facsimile control section instructs a facsimile section to print an error message including sender information and an attached file format.
European Pat. App. No. 1,003,307 describes a system in which the E-mail message may be sent to a user who reads information regarding the purpose of the E-mail message in the body of the message. When the user is satisfied that it is safe to perform the functions requested by the E-mail, the user may execute a file which is attached to the incoming E-mail message to perform the required diagnostic or control functions. In an alternative embodiment, the incoming mail message may contain a code, or may be sent to an address that automatic execution of the desired functions, with a program executing in a computing system parsing the E-mail to determine if the E-mail is for a device attached to the computing system. Such parsing is performed by determining if a predetermined code exists at a predetermined place in the E-mail message. Exemplary positions of such a code may be in the subject line of the E-mail message, may be a special code which appears within the message body, may be a code which appears in the message header, including a user-defined field within the header, or may even be in the message envelope.